


Till it Bleeds

by pprfaith



Series: Wishlist 2011 [6]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Apocalypse, F/M, Gen, Pregnancy, Tearjerker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/307022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pprfaith/pseuds/pprfaith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is how they're going to save the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till it Bleeds

**Author's Note:**

> **Prompt/Prompter:** Supernatural/Buffy the Vampire Slayer, No Pairing.  
>  _He/She feels the time slowly trickling through his fingers and he's not sure anything he does will make a difference._ , - for Polgara
> 
> This is the most straight-up tear jerker I have ever written, designed to do nothing but push the unsuspecting reader’s buttons to maximum effect and I don’t even know where it came from, okay? Blame the prompt, which was brilliant, but also, what else was I supposed to do with it? And there’s… well, a conversation about a pairing is not a pairing right? Let’s call it… subtext? I’m sorry. I have basically not idea what this is, but it’s for you?

+

Dean sat with his back against the wall, knees drawn up tightly to his chest, like a little boy hiding in a closet. Only there was no closet and if there had been, well, knowing the Winchester’s bad luck, there’d have been a monster of some sort in it.

Not that monsters needed closets.

Tonight, they didn’t even need forms.

Tonight there was nothing for him to shoot, stab, burn, decapitate or just plain pummel until it dropped dead, nothing but a bloody heap of broken bones on the floor. He wanted there to be. He wanted to hit something so, so badly. To ball his fist tightly enough for his nails to dig into his palm, tightly enough for his knuckles to ache with remembered pains. And then he wanted to raise those fists and slam them into something living, something breathing and warm and _fragile_.

Dean wanted to break things.

Something clanged outside and it took him a moment to figure out that the wind was simply banging the shutters of the old rundown house they were squatting in. No monsters at the gates. Just the wind, howling and raging. At least _someone_ was as angry as he was.

But he wasn’t really angry, was he? He was _helpless_.

Because monsters he could fight, but this was so far beyond any of them.

“Dean,” Buffy said, and she sounded small and tired and beaten. She sounded as fragile as she looked for the first time since he’d met her, only six weeks ago.

He rolled his head along the wall to look at where she was lying on an old mattress next to him, every available inch of her curled around the hard protrusion of her belly. Her hair was plastered to her temples with sweat and her eyes were far too bright. She shifted slightly, reached out one hand toward him, beckoning.

Like a lost boy he went, kneeling next to her, taking her hand and pressing a kiss to her forehead. “How you doing, babe?”

She laughed dryly. “Dying. What about you?”

He laughed, too, but there was nothing dry about it. He was going to cry like a pussy any moment now and, Jesus, he’d only known her for a few short weeks, but he didn’t want to lose her. No more death for this fucking apocalypse, for this goddamn world that never gave anything back. No more blood for the monsters and the demons and the devils that seemed to never, ever stay down. They just got back up and came back stronger and cast death spells on beautiful, vibrant women who smiled at Dean like he was _good_. Like he was unbroken.

“Fabulous,” he assured her and stretched his free hand to lay across the side of her belly.

“How’s baby?”

“Kicking,” she told him and the little one, just to prove her point, kicked against his hand so hard that he actually startled. He looked at Buffy, wide-eyed. She seemed amused. Either she was used to junior bruising her from the inside by now, or he was overreacting.

“That’s my girl,” he said, like the world’s biggest sap. The kid wasn’t his. He hadn’t even been there for most of the pregnancy, had only met her mother in a rundown gas station a few weeks ago.

It’d been… glorious, as Sammy would say. They’d stopped because there’d been too many abandoned cars at the gas station. Too silent. Too dead. And then a gunshot from the inside and they’d been off, scrambling for weapons, running full throttle for the little store only to find this tiny, blonde, six-months-pregnant chick kicking some serious demon ass. Dean remembered stopping in the doorway like an absolute idiot, staring.

Buffy had kicked and punched and while she hadn’t exactly been able to duck, she’d still twisted to avoid almost every single attack, using a truly frightening knife to swipe at the demons surrounding her like a pack of dogs.

They’d taunted her, told her what they’d do to her, to her unborn child. How they’d cut the baby out of her, make her watch as they killed it. All the lovely shit demons liked to spew. And she’d just punched one of them in the face and told them if they wanted her kid, they’d have to send the devil himself to do the job because she’d kill them all.

At that point they, Dean and Sam, had unfrozen long enough to finally be of some help with the knife, killing two of the demons while Buffy beat the shit out of the third one.

While six months pregnant.

He still had trouble getting over that, remembered thinking, even during the fight, that he really wanted to see how she moved without a baby bump slowing her down because it would be vicious and beautiful to watch.

And then, when the last demon had been dead, she’d neatly wiped her knife clean, tucked it into a sheath along her thigh and waved at them. “Hi, boys. Thanks for the help, hold that thought, I really need to pee.”

And she’d scampered off, climbing over two cooling corpses to reach the ladies’ room, leaving the Winchester’s staring after her like she was a three-headed purple cow. Or, you know, a highly pregnant demon killing super chick.

“Dean,” Buffy said again, and this time there was something in her tone, something low, pleading. He shook his head and disentangled himself from her grip, standing to mess with the candles spread throughout the room, pulling a few closer. Stalling.

They’d talked, once Buffy had gotten back from her bathroom break. They’d told her little about themselves – two vessels on a roadtrip to stop the apocalypse – but she’d been more than willing to share. She’d admitted, weeks later, that it was because she’d already known most of what there was to them. She’d known she could trust them.

Warmed a dead man’s heart, it did.

Buffy was the Slayer. Capital S. Comma the. One girl in all the world. And the little one riding shotgun was some prophesied child, much like Jesse and another kid she called Connor. Only this one, she’d told them, was going to be a girl and she was going to save the world.

“My baby,” she said, sitting in Bobby’s living room, her hands propped against her back, her belly protruding like a sign that Dean couldn’t look past. “is going to grow up to save this world, once and for all. She’s going to seal it off. No more heaven, no more hell. Just humans.”

The implications were mind-boggling. No more angels, no more demons. No more war. A world belonging to humans. And Dean had no doubt that there’d still be war and hate and poverty, but there’d be no more monsters lurking in closets, eating little children, no more ghosts in the walls, no more blood on the ground.

Peace.

All because of one little girl. But first she needed to survive to adulthood. First, she needed to be born. Heaven and hell both were trying their damn best to stop that from ever happening. The demons at the gas station had only been a taste of what had come after Buffy in the past six weeks, of what had come after her since the day she’d realized she carried the next Jesus inside of her.

She talked about friends sometimes, about a guy who was like a dad to her. Dean and Sam never asked where they were, what had happened to them. They didn’t have to.

Mom. Dad. Caleb. Jim. Ellen. Jo. Ash. Anna. Pamela.

They kept Buffy. Or course they did. Anything that had even the slightest chance of _ending_ this fucking war they’d hold onto to their last breath. Cas had done his scrimshaw thing on Buffy’s ribs, Bobby had cast every protective charm he could come up with and Dean and Sam hadn’t left Buffy alone for longer than her hourly bathroom breaks since the day they’d met her.

There wasn’t just a human growing inside of her. There was hope growing in her belly, bright and loud.

Loud enough for all the wrong people to hear.

“Dean,” Buffy repeated. Louder. Angier.

She was entitled, Dean figured. She was dying. He gave up on the candles and returned to his place at her side.

She took his hand again, squeezing too hard. “D’you ever think what the world will be like?”

Will. Not would. Future tense, not conditional. Dean had never paid much attention in class, but he heard the difference all the same. Buffy should name the kid Hope, if it weren’t such a horrible cliché.

“When Girl Jesus saves us all?”

She smacked his thigh. “Stop calling my daughter Girl Jesus. She’ll get a big head.”

He laughed, and there was that thick, choking sound again. Buffy sobbed once, very quietly.

“We’d have dated in high school,” he blurts, because they would have. Without monsters, without demons and angels and all the other dicks, they would have. “You’d have been the hot cheerleader and I’d have been the awesome rebel type guy and we would have had steamy sex in the back of the Impala and I’d have taken you home to meet Sammy, who’d have been a total little bitch.”

They both laughed and Buffy nodded. “Yeah. He kind of does that, doesn’t he? What then?”

He shrugged, played with her fingers between his. Her skin was too hot, the curse cast on her eating away at her, killing her, killing her baby. Killing hope. Killing _him_. He could feel time slowly trickling through his fingers, like Buffy’s hands, small and so much tougher than they looked and he wasn’t sure that anything he did would make a difference.

Cas was calling in what few favors he still had, Sam and Bobby were pouring over books. Dean had tried to help, in the beginning, but they’d sent him out hours ago, told him to stay with Buffy. He wasn’t sure if it was mercy or punishment. He was going bug-fuck crazy here, in this room, watching the woman he was pretty sure he was in love with as she slowly died.

“High school sweethearts all the way, obviously,” he told her, trying to go for casual and missing by yards. “Married at twenty. You wanna go to college, babe?”

She hummed in thought, then nodded in agreement. “Psychology. I studied psychology once, did I tell you that?”

“Nah. Was it fun?”

Hesitating, she finally settled on, “I was good at it.” Then, “What do you do, while I’m at college?”

“Working,” he answered, promptly. “’M a mechanic.”

“Kids?”

He was sure he could actually feel her getting hotter under his hands, getting sicker, weaker. Sam had estimated eight hours until the curse made her sick enough for her heart to give out. That had been over six hours ago.

He looked her over, eye catching on her belly. Just over seven months now. Too early. Too early for a baby out here, without medical assistance, fragile and vulnerable and without her mother. Dean had seen the fatalist in Bobby’s eyes, had heard Cas whisper something about saving at least one of them. He knew it was the smart thing to do. This baby was going to _save them all_.

But Buffy… Buffy…

“Two,” he said, “Boy and girl.”

“Wow. You’re not, like, a walking stereotype at all.”

“I try,” he said, a little smugly, a little easier.

“I’m not going to make it,” Buffy blurted, out of the blue. He wanted to shove the words back in her mouth, hold it shut, scream at her to shut the fuck up. All he did was squeeze her hand tighter, to the point of pain, and whisper her name. Pathetic.

“Shut up,” she snapped without heat. “I’m dead, Dean.”

“Sam and Bobby – “

“Haven’t found anything in the past seven hours and won’t find anything in the next thirty minutes. I’m _dying_ , Dean.”

He closed his eyes, fought the urge to run form the room like the coward he was.

“And there’s a few things that I need to say before… before.”

He kept silent. Maybe she wouldn’t keep talking if he didn’t react.

“You need to save her. Cut her out of me if you have to, but you have to – “

“What? Are you fucking nuts?!!?”

She ignored his outburst completely. “She has to live. Not because she’s going to save the world but because she’s my baby. She’s _mine_ , Dean, and I’ll fight my way out of hell if I have to, to make sure she’s safe. So you swear to me, you swear right now, that you’re going to protect my daughter, Dean Winchester, or so help me God I will drag you down to the pit with me with my bare hands!”

He slammed his head backward, hit the wall hard. It didn’t undo her words. “Buffy, I…”

“ _Swear_!”

“Okay,” he said, because what else was there? “Okay. I swear. I’m the worst fucking person for looking after your kid, but I’ll try. I’ll keep her safe. That what you want to hear?”

Silence.

“Yes.” She sounded calmer now. And weaker. Like that had taken what little she’d had left out of her. Like she was _dying_. “Dawn Mary Summers,” she went on, quieter.

“What?”

“Her name, asshole, she’s going to need a name and that’s hers. Dawn Mary Summers. You tell her that.”

Buffy loved sunrises. “Mary?”

She shrugged awkwardly. “Yeah. I figured you and Sam had one kickass old lady. Do you mind?”

“No.”

“Good.” Smiling again. Like everything was peachy keen. For one bright, crystal clear moment, Dean hated Buffy with every fiber of his being for doing this to him, for making him love her and dying and just giving up.

The moment passed. He breathed.

“There are papers in the side pocket of my duffel. There’s a letter in there for her and my diaries. Keep the hunting stuff away from her, but the one with the blue cover. Let her have that when she’d old enough. There’s information on a few accounts in there. They’re all in my name, now that… now. There’s enough money to tide you over for a good while. There’s some trinkets, too. A cross, a ring, a few pictures. Mr. Gordo. I’ve explained them all in the letter, so make sure she gets them. There are a few baby books in there, too, genius. Try not to drop my daughter on her head too often, okay?”

He didn’t really understand how she could just lie there and speak so calmly about him raising her daughter, her orphaned baby girl. Her Dawn. How she could speak at all without screaming at the injustice of it all, without gibbering in fear and panic and helpless, blind _rage_.

But he listened, numb to the bone, numb like only hell had ever made him before, and he filed all the information away at the back of his mind, somewhere. For later. Because he’d promised.

“And Dean?”

“Mhm.”

“When she’s old enough to ask about her parents, tell her that Mommy loves her. And tell her you’re her Daddy, okay?”

“What? I - “

“Please,” she added. He’d never asked about her baby daddy, beyond wondering out loud if he was still in the picture. She’d told him no and never brought it up again. He didn’t ask now. It didn’t matter.

“Why me?”

She snorted, tugging at his hand. “Because this may sound like a romantic comedy, but you’re a good man and I wish you really were her father, okay?”

He was about to answer, when Sam came bursting in the door, elation, worry, exhaustion all written on his face like a billboard, loud and clear. Dean looked at his brother with so much naked hope that he thought it’d burn Sam.

“We think we found it.”

“Are you sure?”

Rubbing a hand over tired eyes, Sam nodded, then shook his head. “No. But there’s no time. If we don’t do something now…”

He didn’t have to finish. Buffy was burning up and shivering on the floor, her breathing shallow and her color that of the newly dead.

“Odds?” Buffy asked, still appearing calmer than either of the brothers. She’d finished, Dean realized. She’d made her peace. It made him angry again.

“Odds?” Sam echoed, blandly. “I don’t… if this is the right ritual? If we’re not too late? If the fact that you’re pregnant doesn’t screw everything up? Actually pretty good.”

Pretty good odds with half a dozen ‘if’s attached were worth shit and they all knew it.

Still.

Still.

If a dead man could rise, if a cursed man could climb out of hell, if an angel could choose man over god, then by fuck a half-dead woman could win against some cowardly death spell cast on her by a bunch of pussy demons that were too scared to face her properly.

“Where do you want us?” Dean asked and Sam smiled, relieved.

“We’re all set up. We only need the guest of honor.” He pointed at the room behind him, where candle light flickered brighter than in here.

Dean nodded and kneeled, hooking his arms under Buffy’s knees and shoulders. He wasn’t even going to ask if she could walk and the fact that she didn’t insist on trying told him more than he wanted to know.

Sam held the door for them, smiled gently at Buffy as they passed him and trailed a hand along her stomach. “It’ll be okay,” he said, and he sounded like he believed it.

Dean hoped, he hoped so hard that it hurt, that Sammy was right.

Bobby and Cas were set up on either side of a complicated set of runes drawn on the dusty floor and Dean bent down to put Buffy between them, at the center of the circle they’d etched into old floorboards. She clung to his lapels hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

“Swear it,” she hissed in an undertone, low and desperate and finally, finally, she sounded _angry_.

Dean smiled at her, all teeth and no tears. “I don’t have to,” he told her. “You’ll be there all the way.”

“Dean,” she tried again, warningly.

He shook his head stubbornly and ducked in briefly, pressing a kiss to her cheek, quick and chaste. The sweetest he’d ever given anyone.

“No,” he said as he pulled back and he looked Buffy dead in the eye as he did and he knew she heard what he was really saying. _Yes_ , he was saying, _I will, I’ll die for her, but you’ll be there too, you’ll survive because you have to, because good things do happen, because I say so and we’ll raise Dawn together and we’ll be so good._

Really, all he was saying was _yes_.

He stepped out of the circle and Buffy slumped against the floor, pale and waxen, too exhausted to keep herself upright. Her eyes were still burning, with fever and anger both. Bobby and Cas started chanting and Dean thought of pipe dreams and closed his eyes and hoped.

+


End file.
